Djinn
by Sinvisigoth
Summary: One of the characters that we'll meet in Broken Saints insisted on telling her story. 13.01.10 Originally a one-shot but has now ended up as the prologue for Broken Saints as I gave it a major overhaul today.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a prequel to Broken Saints, concerning one of the characters that we'll meet much later in the story. I couldn't stop thinking about her and ended up with this. It's short, but she kind of insisted on telling her story so I hope you like it. I'm sorry this is listed as Bella/Jasper when they're not mentioned but I figure if I didn't do that then it wouldn't be found by those of you who are following Broken Saints. Plus I'm also hoping to add a few new readers.**

Djinn

Chapter One

I am a wishing. I visit so many, slipping from the tips of tongues and  
the heath of the heart. So few hold onto me in the seamless places  
where they need me that I wonder why they call me at all. Sew me to  
your soul and I stay.


	2. Chapter 2

**Djinn**

Chapter Two

Today I am a cry for help. Repeated many times and so close together that  
I become a drum roll I am held, as so seldom now, in the deepest, barest  
part of this girl. She thinks she is in the woods. I want to tell her that the  
wood she smells is a coffin, and the whispering is not leaves but trickling.  
The lid is ill fitting and she is waiting to drown in the earth she came from.  
She hurts because she has been misused. She is frightened because it is dark.  
She is dying because they wished it.**  
****  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Djinn**

Chapter Three

She pants. They are done and there is little that is not bleeding and bruised.**  
**At first she screamed so loudly that the sound had to remain inside her mind  
because her vocal chords could not hope to match it. Now there is only a  
stream of little outward gasps that jerk away from her mouth like a kite on  
a string.

And yet...above all this I can see that her soul is intact. It, too, is torn and  
bleeding - leaching colours like the vilest moulds and wrapping her not like  
the silk it should but like the driest lichen on the oldest tree - but it remains  
attached to her centre of gravity. I wonder how she has accomplished this  
when it should have been ripped apart along with her body.

While I am drawn inexorably to the wishing, I have never before been drawn  
to the wisher. What will she be to me? The thought that one of these bundles  
of meat and feelings should mean more to me than I to her is disturbing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Djinn**

Chapter Four

I do not live in a lamp. I tried once but could not fit; one might as well  
try to contain an ocean in an orange skin. I realise that I am ruining a  
perfectly good mythical stereotype, but if you knew what it is to squash  
your consciousness into such confinement you would understand. I had  
to leave after a day and drift above a mountain pass to erase the  
claustrophobia.

I should clarify, that I do not live at all. I do not believe I ever did. I would  
remember living, I think. It looks fun. It looks beautiful. Even pain looks  
beautiful when you have no synapses along which to fire your electric life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Djinn**

Chapter Five

A vixen pads through the leaf litter scattered by the two men, her  
muzzle wrinkling in simultaneous distaste and interest. The thought  
of eating a human repulses her; they smell in some ways like other  
things that are made of meat but have an unnatural scent of metal  
and dominion about them always. But, the smell of blood is the smell  
of blood and it clutches at a part of her she would not have been able  
to describe or locate had she the words.

She digs a little where the vibration is strongest, sensing that there  
is something of interest less than a metre below her but unsure of how  
she might reach it and of her desire to do so. The tremor of a smaller,  
less disturbing body echoes through her whiskers and she crouches as  
she spies the rabbit which, in turn, has seen her. This eye contact is  
perhaps the most complete of the animal world; hunter and prey - will  
you kill me will I escape you? - eye to eye while their cells and tissues  
wantonly give in to the surge of endorphins and impulses. One chooses  
to run the other to pursue.

Her cubs are pleased with their meal when she returns to her earth.


	6. Chapter 6

**Djinn**

Chapter Six

The girl, aware that another life had tried to reach her for a moment, mews  
in frustrated need and scratches more violently at the wood above her face.  
Splinters fall into her eyes but this minor pain does not register. Possibly  
the pain of having her eyes turned backwards in their sockets overrides  
anything further to this grievous insult to her flesh. Possibly the adrenaline  
coursing through her is close enough to an overdose to simply blot out  
all pain. Is it possible that something, greater even than I, has taken  
pity on her and granted her a reprieve of some kind?

If the last is true then the universe is proving to be more charitable than  
my long experience has taught me is likely. If it is not then the time in which  
I may help her can now be counted in minutes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Djinn**

Chapter Seven

You might suppose at this point that I am the girl. That I have dissociated  
myself from the horror and the pain and the dark. The opposite is true. The  
only way I can help her, this being so separate from myself, is to trade  
places with her. I can only do this if the other wishes to be me. Right now  
she wishes she could trade places with anyone. That is enough. Now I will  
see how exquisite pain is. I will know. For sure and for certain. The beauty  
of it.

The only thing I am not sure of is what will happen to me when the body dies.  
Will I be this again?


	8. Chapter 8

**Djinn**

Chapter Eight

She cannot know I am here. And yet she is reaching for me with  
everything left of what she was and every possibility of what she  
may be. She still wants to trade places but she no longer wants  
to be saved.

Now I see. How this being could survive such treatment and not  
surrender herself to the amorphous nothing they tried to send her  
to. Her soul is stitched to her magnificent heart with a shimmer of  
gold that humbles me in its splendour.

She wants to save me.**  
**


	9. Chapter 9

**This is the last chapter; I hope you've enjoyed reading. Be sure to make your way over to Broken Saints now ;)**

~Sin~

Djinn

Chapter Nine

As I melt into the small space I feel her pass through me and I rejoice  
that I have been allowed this touch. Aeons spent in contemplation  
and wonder mean nothing compared to the radiance that bathes me  
as we switch.

As I settle into my new surroundings I feel her move out and up and I  
become aware of the greatest source of her pain. They had cut off her  
wings. I weep not for myself or for her but for the limitless possibility  
of all things. Then I weep for the pain.

Oh goddess. It. Is. Beautiful.


End file.
